Biden and Sanders respond to coronavirus relief bill

By

Janie Valentine
Ballotpedia's Daily Presidential News Briefing
March 27, 2020: Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders responded to the coronavirus relief bill. Trump wrote a letter to governors about classifying counties by coronavirus risk level.

Ballotpedia is monitoring changes made to election dates and procedures in response to the coronavirus pandemic. blank    blankblank   

Each Friday, we highlight a presidential candidate’s key campaign staffer.

Becca Rast is a Democratic staffer with experience in campaign strategy and political organizing. Rast graduated from Brown University with a degree in environmental studies in 2013.

Previous campaign work:

  • 2018 Jessica King (D-Penn.) U.S. House campaign, campaign manager

Other experience:

  • 2016-2017: Lancaster Stands Up, co-founder and member of leadership team

  • 2014-2017: 350.org, youth engagement coordinator

What she says about Sanders: “Bernie Sanders is the real deal because he’s spent his entire career fighting neoliberalism. From his first victory the year after Reagan was elected to leading the progressive populist insurgencey [sic] in the Democratic Party. He has stood for justice and with the 99% forever.”

Notable Quote of the Day

“Cuomo’s rise is an unalloyed benefit for his state and the nation’s largest city, but it is not an unalloyed benefit for his party. To almost any sentient observer, it looks like the Democrats have picked the wrong guy to oppose Trump this fall. But the Democrats have painted themselves into a corner. They can’t simply stride out across the wet paint now that Biden has effectively won the nomination. He won it in open primaries, with settled rules, and there’s no way to change them.

Biden won’t offer the party an easy escape. He won’t suddenly renounce the prize he has sought his entire adult life.”

– Charles Lipson, RealClearPolitics

Democrats

  • Joe Biden tweeted, “The relief bill passed by Congress was a good start, but now we need to:

    • Forgive at least $10,000 of student loan debt per person
    • Provide emergency paid sick leave to everyone who needs it
    • Ensure no one has to pay for COVID-19 treatment or an eventual vaccine”

He also appeared on Jimmy Kimmel’s Quarantine Minilogue.

  • Bernie Sanders said on the radio show 1A, “While this bill did not go anywhere near as far as I thought it should go, what it did do is expand unemployment benefits in a way that has never taken place before. … It more or less guarantees unemployment benefits for all American workers … and what this bill says is that for four months you’re going to get $600 more a week than you otherwise would have gotten.”

Republicans

  • Donald Trump wrote a letter to the nations’ governors on classifying counties by their risk of coronavirus. “This is what we envision: Our expanded testing capacities will quickly enable us to publish criteria, developed in close coordination with the Nation’s public health officials and scientists, to help classify counties with respect to continued risks posed by the virus.” He also gave a telephone interview on Fox News’ Hannity.

  • On March 25, the Trump campaign sent cease-and-desist letters to television stations regarding a Priorities USA ad criticizing Trump’s statements about the coronavirus.

Flashback: March 27, 2016

Trump and Sanders were interviewed on ABC’s This Week.blank

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